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Larry Matsuda Remembers the Japanese Internment

70 years ago this month, as war threataned, Executive Order 9066 forced thousands of Japanese-American Seattle residents to flee their homes or face internment; poet Larry Matsuda, who was born in Minidoka and whose poignant collection A Cold Wind in Idaho addresses the tragic events, is profiled in a recent Seattle Magazinepiece. His poem “The Noble Thing” is excerpted (copied below). Click here to buy a copy of this important collection.

The Noble Thing

Depression took Mom awaylike invisible armed guards. She wasa stranger—a stick-like figure with armsand legs poking out of a white smock, pacing the sidewalk next to the WesternState Hospital turn-around.Dad never talked about it, none of it.I never heard him say the word Minidoka…Gaman, ‘endure the unbearable with dignity.’